^ Collective — Waking the Land (Exhibition Opening)

^ is an arts collective based in Leitrim. The five members are Tara Baoth Mooney, Shane Finan, James Kelly, Laura McMorrow, and Sonya Swarte. We collectively occupy an artist-led studio and experimental space in Manorhamilton that opened in September 2022. Over the past three years, we have led events in north Leitrim in response to environmental grief, care, and tending to the land.

For this exhibition-environment, we explore meadows, untrodden ground, and forgotten growth in north Leitrim. In these liminal spaces, a succession of plants create worlds upon worlds, each one following the last. These worlds are an amalgam of the soil, the air, the fauna, and other unpredictable actors like humans. The way these places grow offer ways to think about working together.

As part of this exhibition-environment, we have invited other artists and collectives based in north Leitrim and the surrounding area to reflect on how wilder spaces can offer chances to thrive and flourish.

During the opening reception on Saturday 22 November, ^ will perform a ritual procession through Carrick-on-Shannon starting from The Dock. This procession marks a turning point for Waking the Land, a movement acknowledging the potential loss of our beloved Benbo Mountain in Manorhamilton and celebrating the vast life it breathes into our land. We marked the waking of our land at Samhain in 2024 — now, through this processional ritual, we gather once more to bear witness to its rebirth and renewal.

The waking and reawakening of the living land itself.